


Cloud Cover

by deltachye



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Alternate Universe - Angels, Alternate Universe - Death Reapers, Angst, F/M, Reader-Insert, Romance, Romantic Comedy, Surprise Pairing, i really should have planned this better but just think about an emo keef and angel lance
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-02-12
Updated: 2017-09-07
Packaged: 2018-09-23 20:58:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 7,183
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9676673
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/deltachye/pseuds/deltachye
Summary: [angels/death reaper!au lance mcclain x reader x keith kogane]That totally relatable moment when boys fight over whether or not you get to live or whether you literally have to die. Am I right?





	1. 0031

_hard to see clouds when you're six feet underground._

* * *

 

When the two cute guys came to tell you that you were going to die, you didn’t even find it that weird. In fact, you were more confused than anything else.

“So let me get this straight,” you said slowly. “Your name is Keith—?”

“I’m _Lance_ ,” the coffee-skinned one groaned, running his fingers through short cropped hair. It stuck up in spiky cowlicks. He pointed accusatorily towards the other one, who rolled deep vein blue eyes disinterestedly. “ _That’s_ the stick in the mud!”

“My name is _Keith_ ,” Keith corrected flatly.

“Okay, okay. You’re Lance… and that’s Keith.” You pointed at them both for emphasis and they nodded simultaneously, satisfied. You clasped your hands together with a neat clap. “All right! We all know each other’s names. And you’re both here…?”

“To claim your soul,” Keith finished in the same, easy-going tone, as if he were asking you for a pen. Lance howled irritably, clutching his face in his hands.

“You couldn’t be more _sensitive_?!” Lance hissed. Keith looked genuinely surprised.

“That _was_ me being sensitive,” he defended, shrugging, stuffing his hands into his dark pants pockets. “Usually I just tell people they’re going to die. What, was I still too blunt?”

“You can’t—what—man, you’re the worst death reaper _ever_!”

“And you’re the worst guardian angel, so your words have very little merit to me,” Keith retorted snidely. Lance was practically fuming and looked very likely to throw his body at Keith before you cleared your throat awkwardly. They both turned to glare at you for interrupting their Man Fight™ before remembering themselves. Silently, they backed away from each other to stand opposite sides of the room. You looked to each one, a polite smile still fixed on your lips.

“Sorry, but I’m still trying to understand why two guys magically appeared in my apartment. You didn’t even get buzzed up to the floor or anything.”

“Magic isn’t real,” Keith corrected. “We were just drawn to your soul.”

“…but you still just…” For lack of the right word, you made wobbly jazz hands. “ _…appeared_.”

Keith shrugged. “Fine, if you’d like to think of it that way. Death reapers have the gift of shadow travelling. And this cruddy dollar store angel over here—”

“My name is Lance!”

“—flew.”

“Yes,” you agreed faintly, continuing to smile widely. “ _That’s_ what I was most confused about. Your methods of transportation. Shadow travel and wings. Sounds Earth friendly! Very carbon-free.”

“Glad I could clear it up then,” Keith said with a satisfied nod.

“You’re terrible at this. I hope this isn’t what you say to all the souls you’re guiding. I feel for ‘em,” Lance scoffed. Keith made a face.

“I don’t see _you_ doing much talk, McClain.”

“Fine!” Lance snapped. He strode over to your spot on the couch and knelt in front of you. Suddenly, up close and personal, you could feel a calming radiance around him. Distantly, you wondered if he used liquid highlighter, because the glow emanating from him was ethereal in nature. His voice softened a bit as he looked up to you. “[Name]. I guess we already touched on it, _poorly_ —” a dirty glance to Keith, “—but what’s happening right now is real. Keith’s a death reaper. He comes to guide souls to the afterlife. But don’t worry. I’m your guardian angel. I’m here to make sure you don’t die before your time’s up.”

“And… my time’s up?” you asked feebly, your mind reeling so wildly that you could barely look at him straight. A grimace came across his warm features.

“Well, that’s the problem. You’re not supposed to see both of us at the same time.”

“Her time’s up McClain,” Keith sighed from his spot in the shadowy corner of your kitchenette. He walked forwards and stood next to Lance, getting you to look up at him. Side by side, you couldn’t help but understand that they weren’t the same. It wasn’t just that Keith looked so different, with his willowy frame and pallid, translucent skin—and it wasn’t that they seemed to be able to fight over who was breathing whose oxygen molecules. The air around Keith seemed to grow hot, burning, agitating and exciting the molecules of your skin. Where Lance had the ability to slow time, Keith made it seem like you were sparking on fire. You shivered, wincing, not quite hearing Keith’s words.

“It’s _not_ ,” Lance argued, getting to his own feet. “If it was, I wouldn’t be here, would I?”

Keith’s scowl made his face darken and your face felt like it was burning. Rays of anger practically emanated from the Eurasian featured boy. “You’re _always_ here. Apparently, this isn’t the first time you’ve talked away a death reaper.”

“Because her time’s not up! I’m just doing my _job_.”

“So let me do mine. Her soul is _overdue_. If I don’t get it across, it might never reincarnate. You know what that means, don’t you?” A snarling grin flashed across Keith’s face as he leant into Lance’s. “Surely, passing the bar after four failures means that you know at least _that_ much?”

“Don’t talk to me about the bar,” Lance spat with a vitriol you hadn’t heard from him yet. “ _You_ got kicked out. _You_ fell out of the ring, and _you’re_ the one who’s had to become a reaper because you had nothing left. You’re the _half-blood_ —”

“Okay!” you chirped hastily, standing and easing yourself in between the two men. Their conflicting auras made your body feel as if you were being blasted by the sun in a cold Arctic wind and you winced again, feeling sick just by exposing yourself to them. Still, you grit your teeth, not wanting to have fists being thrown in your fragile box apartment. “Clearly, you guys have got some problems. But, I have my intern’s exam in a week, so if you’d kindly let me go back to studying—”

“What?” they asked at the same time, their chorus ironic considering their very obvious differences. You raised your eyebrows.

“My… intern’s exam?” you tried to explain. “If I fail, I’m going to get cut from the program. So I need to pass. You get it, right?”

They stared blankly.

“We just told you that you might be _dying_ ,” Keith said slowly, his brow furrowed with concern—but it wasn’t the ‘are you okay?’ concern, rather the ‘am I standing next to a psycho?’ concern. “…and you’re worried about a test?”

“It’s not ‘just a test’!” you fired back explosively, practically tearing your hair out at him. “I’m on a scholarship! If I don’t get myself in the 90th percentile, I lose my funding, and there’s no damn way I can pay back my med school loans when I can barely buy myself lunch every day! Haven’t you seen my fridge?! There’s nothing in it! I don’t even own one egg! _One egg_!”

Both Keith and Lance looked shocked by the yelling and exchanged confused looks. Lance raised his hands in front of you to calm you down but you ignored him, marching back to the couch.

“Well, he’s uh, right. _Unfortunately_ ,” Lance said from behind, with a tinge of nervous tenseness behind his measured tone. “When two of us are here like this, you have to make a decision.”

“What kind of decision?” you mumbled, searching through your papers distractedly. You sighed and glanced back shortly. “Listen, guys, I don’t have time for this mortality thing. Like I said, I’ve gotta study, so hurry it up would you?”

Lance seemed baffled by your sudden lack of interest and stammered, stumbling over his words with a questioning tone that didn’t fit the weight of his words.

“U-um, the decision of whether you live… or die?”

“Oh, found it. Right, okay, here it is.” You blew dust off of your notes and turned to face them both, who still had the ‘she’s crazy’ look on their faces. “If I pass this test, you let me live. If not, just kill me. How about that?” You smiled cheerily and threw them both your binders. Lance fumbled and Keith caught his easily, but frowned under the weight.

“What is this?” Keith asked disgustedly, examining it by dangling it between his spindly fingers.

“My notes on chronic illness. Lance has got the one about autoimmune diseases, right?”

“[N-Name],” he stammered. “We’re serious. You have to choose. And you can’t just take it lightly—”

“I just did, didn’t I?” you interrupted testily. “If I pass my intern’s exam, then Keith gets the boot. If not, he can take my soul to Heaven or Hell or whatever the heck he’s going to take it. So do you have the autoimmune book or not?”

He checked the spine hastily. “Yes, but—”

“Then it’s settled!” you interrupted with another burst of positive energy. You sat on your couch and patted both sides of you. “You’re going to help me study, since you’ve already wasted twenty three minutes of my precious time.”

When they made no move to sit, you slammed your hands on the couch cushions.

“ _Got it!?_ ” you shrieked.

“I told you,” Keith whispered out the side of his mouth. “Everybody you bonded to is nuts.”

“Shut up and help her study,” Lance whispered back, unsure of why a mortal was making _him_ —an immortal, divine being—uncomfortable with that chilly smile. And although Keith would never admit it, he felt the same way.


	2. 0600

When you walked back into your living room, you were kind of hoping that it was merely a weird dream you’d had. You paused in front of your bedroom door, taking a deep breath and crossing your fingers. Unfortunately for you, Keith and Lance were still there once you stepped out, arguing over the pronunciation of xerostomia.

“It’s xeh-ro-sto- _mye_ -ah.” Keith shook one of your bright neon pink flashcards in Lance’s face, who batted it away with a deep scowl.

“No, you idiot, it’s xeh-ro-sto- _me_ -ah!”

“Fight me on it,” Keith challenged tautly. 

“I _will_ —!”

“Boys!” you shouted, shutting them both up before one could start pile driving the other through the floor. You were still wrapping your head around the ‘guardian angel’ and ‘death reaper’ parts of them, and didn’t think a brawl between them would end up good for your security deposit. They scrambled to their feet as you glared blearily at each of them, your pyjamas mismatched and wrinkled. 

“You haven’t left,” you muttered under your breath with an air of disappointment. “Great.”

“We can’t leave,” Keith hastened to explain, brushing off his shirt. “Not until you make a choice.”

“Or you can kick Keith out right away by just choosing to live right now—” Lance brought up brightly.

“Lance, I swear—!”

“What’d even be the point of dying?” you interrupted as they began to push each other around. You put your hands on your hips and looked to Keith, who was the… well, the death one. “Why _should_ I choose to go with you? Well, besides the whole avoiding crippling student debt thing.” 

Keith’s eyes widened and he shot a look to Lance, who was awkwardly picking at his nails after your question. “You didn’t _tell_ her?!” Keith demanded incredulously. Lance frowned and scowled right back, but it was more insecure than you were used to.

“What, and make her more likely to choose death, which totally defeats the purpose of having me around? That’d be like you telling her to live! Or, like a car salesman telling somebody to stick it and walk instead—”

“I’m not saying she _should_ die,” Keith growled. “What I’ve been saying this whole time is that she might have to choose the lesser of two evils!”

“Whoa, wait!” you choked out. Pleadingly, you looked at them both. “ _Two_ evils? Wh-what’s worse than death?”

The sudden clumsy reveal that your fate was worse than you’d initially believed was stronger than two gritty espressos combined and you were wide awake, your eyes darting to each desperately. If only these two were around to tell you news before exams! Keith shook his head, resting his face in a hand with obvious displeasure.

“Why don’t you tell her, Lance?” he grumbled testily. “It’s your fault that she’s been in the dark this whole time.”

Quickly, your gaze shot over to Lance, who gave you a guilty look of his own. He cleared his throat and gestured at the couch, still covered with notes. “Maybe you should sit,” he suggested. You balled your hands into fists.

“I’m not going to sit,” you muttered through gritted teeth. “I’m a surgeon. We don’t _sit_.”

“Okay. Well.” Lance ran long fingers through his hair and sighed loudly. “How do I explain this…?”

“You’re sucking at it,” Keith chimed in, leaning heavily against the wall. Lance glowered at him.

“You’re not helping, Emo Death Nerd.”

Keith waved him off silently. Your nerves were starting to fray and you were very close to punching the cosmic-divine-immortal guy right in his cosmic-divine-immortal nose.

“Lance,” you breathed, shutting your eyes. “You have 30 seconds before I go even more insane than I already have.”

“A-all right! Jeez… okay, think of this!” He said brightly, snapping his fingers with a sparking idea. “D’you ever wonder why babies seem like soulless, life sucking demons?”

Silence. You even reopened your eyes to look at him, making sure you hadn’t just hallucinated.

“W-well, that’s because they are,” Lance stammered.

“Babies are life sucking demons?” you repeated skeptically, crossing your arms. Lance pouted.

“No, no, they’re soulless! Man, where’s one of Coran’s informational tapes when you need them… anyways.” He cleared his throat and held up a finger like a teacher lecturing a kid. “When humans are born, they’re born without a soul. There’s no _being_ to them. They’re just shells.”

“That’s when I come in,” Keith interrupted from the side, despite having implied that he wouldn’t be doing any interrupting. “Us death reapers guide souls of the passed to reincarnation. The souls that get to move on get to live again through a new life. Of course, they have no memories of their past lives, but some facets of personalities stay intact.”

“After a human gets a soul, they’re cosmically bonded to a guardian angel,” Lance continued. His tone was gentle and his face had a tinge of sentimentality behind it. The fact that he hadn’t even told off Keith for butting in made you realize that this was serious. “Guardian angels are around for that soul. We’re your big brother, your mom… we’re your protectors. We’re not supposed to actually meddle in your lives, but preventing undue tragedies—car accidents, freak illnesses—we’re the people that give you some good luck in your lives while you still have time.

“But all souls are only granted a limited amount of time before they have to be reincarnated. There’s nothing we can do about that. But sometimes, they don’t get to go over after the life they’ve led. Sometimes the decisions they’ve made tarnish the soul so badly that it can’t be reborn… so it just dies with the person they were last with.”

“So… is that why you’re here?” you asked timidly. Your palms hurt because of your nails digging silvery half moons into them. Still, you tried to keep your composure and took a deep breath. “My soul… doesn’t get to reincarnate?”

“That’s not it,” Keith interjected, shaking his head. “That’s not the problem. If it were, you’d just die without seeing either of us. The problem is that your soul… isn’t even your soul.”

You stared. He looked back before raising an eyebrow with mild concern.

“Uh… you okay?” he asked awkwardly, glancing over to Lance. “I know this is a lot to take in, but—”

“You know what?” you blurted out, ignoring him entirely. You smiled cheerily, as if he hadn’t just dropped life-changing (“life-changing” being synonymous with “imminent life-losing”) news onto your head. “I’m going to need that coffee after all. Do you guys take sugar and cream?”

“Double-double, please?”

Keith punched Lance and you turned around to face the counter, as if looking away might make them disappear. Lamentably, Lance’s whining made you very aware that the situation was not going to go away if you just pretended that it didn’t exist.

But that didn’t stop you from trying.


	3. 1101

“You can’t ignore us forever,” Keith said exasperatedly. You looked up from your laptop disgruntledly.

“I’m not ignoring you for _ever_. Just for _now_.” You resumed typing and Keith sighed, turning to Lance while drumming his fingers on the table.

“What do we do?” he whispered. “We wait any longer and her soul might tarnish before I can take it over to the other side.”

“Look, it’s not as if I’m _trying_ to screw you over, Keith, so stop throwing a hissy fit. It’s just—”

“It’s what? You’re just screwing me over anyways? Don’t forget that the only one that gets hurt here is your ward, not me—”

“Okay, this?!” you blurted out, interrupting their very important sounding conversation. You slammed your laptop shut and glared at them both as you stood, gesturing at the two of them. “ _This_ whole loud whisper yelling thing? It makes it really hard for me to ignore you.”

“You shouldn’t ignore us,” Lance said grievously. “This is a matter of whether or not you get to be reincarnated.”

You glanced at your watch. It was 10:59. Tapping the face, you inhaled deeply, closing your eyes.

“You have one minute to explain. After that, I’m going back to ignoring you again.”

Keith looked doubtful, but Lance understood that you were serious and gulped a breath down.

“When you were born, somebody guided a soul to your body. The thing is, your body’s not compatible with the soul. Human souls are unique. They’re finicky, and sometimes they don’t fit. But for some reason, your body drew in the soul anyways, which is why you’re _you_ right now—only, the soul’s waking up, and it knows it doesn’t belong. It’s going to fight you. It’s been fighting you for a long time. Have bad things been happening around you a lot? Your soul’s wrestling with your natural fate. If you don’t separate from it, you won’t die—but maybe you’ll wish you were dead. People with tarnished souls aren’t people. They become killers, they get cold—they stop being human. And they can’t be reborn from it. _But_ , if you fight back, the soul might accept you. It’s a gamble that you have to think about. You can choose to be reincarnated right now, or you can choose to maybe end up alive, but without a soul. Or maybe things will all turn out okay. It’s your choice.”

Lance gasped for breath as you stared. You could feel Keith’s dark eyes on you and slowly looked to your watch.

“It’s 11:01,” you said coolly with the same emotionless voice you used to call the time of death of people who had died under your knife. You sat back down slowly. With a methodical flourish of the hand, you reopened your laptop and turned away from them both. Keith sighed through his nose as the light clacking of keys started up again like a monotonous melody of melancholy.

“She’s ignoring us again,” he pointed out to Lance.

“You _think_?!”

\---

After a while, you got up and went to your room. Keith and Lance both sat up, hopeful that your ‘ignoring session’ was over. Keith had tried to talk to you during this ‘ignoring session’ and received nothing but cold silence, which hurt his ego enough for Lance to step in. Lance got a full on slap to the face, and that hurt him enough for the both of them to stay out of your way until you decided to talk to them again. When you emerged, you were dressed in periwinkle scrubs and glanced at the both of them.

“So I’ll see you later,” you exclaimed, turning away. Haughtily, you turned heel and began to walk away. Keith scrambled to his feet and chased after you.

“Wait! You can’t leave!”

“Um, yes I can. Look. I’m leaving.” You jiggled the doorknob for emphasis and Keith scowled.

“That’s not—look, we’re only able to stay on Earth because we’re attached to your soul right now. That means we have to follow you around everywhere.”

You made a face of pure annoyance that made even Keith shrink away a bit in fear of what you were going to say next. With an angry sigh, you slumped.

“… _fine_. But are you both like… invisible? Am I going to be talking to myself when other people look at me?”

The both of them exchanged a look. Lance shook his head, which was a bit swollen on one side from where your hand had met up with his face.

“I mean… we _can_ materialize into the mortal world.”

“Good. Do that. I don’t need people to think I’m crazy.” 

“Actually—”

“ _What_ , Keith? I’m going to be late for my shift at this rate!” You glared and the immortal death reaper shifted uncomfortably.

“I can’t go into the sun.”

“You can’t?” you repeated, suddenly curious. “What, like, you’ll burn up vampire style? It’s not even sunny. It’s pouring.” 

He shrugged.

“Death reapers are bad with daylight. But I’ll be around in the shadow world, so I won’t actually be gone. You just won’t be able to see or interact with me.”

“That means _we_ get one-on-one time!” Lance chirped, sidling up to your side. Miraculously, his cheek had already gone back to normal, allowing him to flash a winking grin at you. You shook him off and scowled.

“Great. I get to be chatted up by the winged loser while the emo freak lurks in the shadows. When I said I wanted guys to be all over me, I did _not_ ask for them to fight over my soul while they were at it…”

“Technically, it’s not your soul—”

This time, you didn’t even need to look at Keith to shut him up. His words merely stopped in their track. Lance was still clutching his chest.

“‘Winged loser’…?” he whispered to himself, pained. You eyed him testily.

“Yeah, you’re a loser. With wings. Hurray me, right?!”

With that, you opened the door and slammed it shut behind you sharply, the poor wood nearly splintering under your aggressiveness. Lance almost wished you were ignoring him again.

\---

The hospital was a short drive away. You’d picked a place close to work. Normally, it wasn’t ever that bad, save for the occasional traffic. But today sucked. It wasn’t your fault that you felt awkward having an immortal deity tagging shotgun in your car, fiddling with the radio.

“This is a good song. Man, I wish we had better music when I was alive.”

Although you wanted to chew him out for touching your car, you found yourself to be curious. After all, they hadn’t really gone into any details about themselves. So death reapers and angels were real—how did that even work?

“You were alive? Like, on Earth?” you asked hesitantly. He nodded, leaning back into his chair as some generic pop song hummed out through the radio. Rain pelted the windows, flicked aside by your wipers in time to the sad lyrics. 

“All of us were. Even Keith, but I’m pretty sure he was from the fourties.”

“Like, World War Two?” You were unable to keep yourself from shooting a surprised glance to his face. He shrugged nonchalantly.

“Keith doesn’t talk a lot about himself. He’ll probably tell you more than he told me if you asked him.”

“So what about you? When were you alive?”

“Fifties. I went out with a bang not too long after, I’m pretty sure. It gets kinda blurred.”

“So you’re ancient,” you muttered, rolling your eyes. “Great. I’m lugging around 80 year old men.”

“We’re _immortal_ ,” Lance exclaimed indignantly. “So for your knowledge, I’m eternally twenty-five.”

“What do you remember from being alive? It would’ve been nice if you were around during my AP World History exams.”

“Not much. I remember there being a lot of sun in Cuba, and being really happy whenever it rained…” He seemed to be watching the droplets on his window, and his tone was much more quiet than you would associate with him. After hitting a stoplight, he turned to you. “You have to be a reincarnated soul before you can become a guardian angel. And we already told you what happens if that soul inside of you breaks free.”

“Then why do you keep insisting that I live?” you retorted. “Why shouldn’t I just give myself over to Keith?”

“...because. I guess I’ll miss you.”

“Miss me?” you repeated, too surprised to even keep up your angry act. 

“I’ve known you ever since you were a kid. You’re my ward.” He was running his fingertip along the window, tracing a raindrop. His voice was low, barely audible as his back faced you. “Once you get reincarnated, you’re gone. Your soul might move on, but you’ll never be you again… I’ll lose you.”

You didn’t have enough time to reply before the cacophony of honking made you jump. You’d been idling at the green. You shot back forwards, but not before giving Lance a strained, confused look. He didn’t even say anything else to you. Not even after you’d gotten into the hospital. You kept catching yourself staring at him, and forced yourself to look down at your feet. What did he mean by _I’ll miss you_? You were still reeling at the sound of his soft tone with those words, and didn’t know if he was just saying them to get you to agree with him, or if they were actually genuine. Could you even begin to trust a mysterious guy that had wings?

Thankfully for you, but maybe not for your patients, your pager went off. It beeped and buzzed angrily. You dug it out of your white coat’s pocket and felt your face run cold as the blue colour pulsated at you.

“What’s going on?” Lance stammered, stumbling as you pushed him aside. You shot him a single, cursory look before breaking out into a sprint.

“Wouldn’t you know better than me, angel boy?!

Somebody’s _dying_!”


	4. 2359

You scrubbed angrily, the harsh soap stinging your raw skin as you ground your teeth together. Of course, you’d been wearing surgical gloves, but latex wasn’t going to separate you from the disgusting cling of guilt. The smell of antiseptic and the general hospital made your head spin and you clung to the edge of the deep metal sink, eyes shut tightly as the water continued to run. Your ears still rung with the sound of the whine of a heart monitor flat-lining. 

You were so out of it that you didn’t notice the tap squeaking shut, the shower of pressurized water trickling to a gurgling stop. Nobody else had been in the decontamination room with you, and nobody had entered. You only opened your eyes at the sound of your name.

“Keith,” you acknowledged stiffly, turning around and confirming the presence of the person the faint voice belonged to. He cocked his head to the side, his deep-set eyes surveying your bent over form wearily. He looked just as you remembered. His wild dark hair was impeccably messy and his faded red jacket hung over his skeletal frame. The almost hot aura that surrounded him didn’t seem to affect you as much as it had before, quelling down into a tolerable itch on your skin.

“You know that there was nothing you could have done,” he said, quietly. 

“Fuck that!” you spat acridly, turning back around to stare down into the sink. The sheen of water at the bottom reflected back up at you, showing you a worn and tired face that you could hardly call your own. You heard Keith take a couple of steps, his feet soundless against the floor. Out of the corner of your eye, you saw his tall figure lean against the sink, his gaze focused to the back wall as you kept glaring down at your reflection. 

“I don’t believe in that,” you continued, speaking down at yourself viscerally. Your voice reverberated up through the small, empty room, giving it an ethereal echo. “I don’t believe in fate, or souls—God or spirituality—none of that stupid bullshit.” You waved at him absent-mindedly, your voice heavy with sarcastic joy. “And yet, _you’re_ here.”

“That’s how it turned out, yeah.”

“Don’t tell me God actually exists.” You peeled your eyes away from the basin, tiredly peering at him. He shrugged again.

“Whatever you think goes, really. It’s not my place to say, and to be honest, I don’t know. But I’m telling you, you couldn’t have done anything to save that little girl.” 

“What did I just say, Keith!?” you hissed, clenching your fingers around the cold metal edge of the sink. “I don’t _believe_ that. I could have—no, I _should_ have done better. I swore an oath to do no harm. If I weren’t so fucking pathetic, I could’ve—” You choked up and quit talking, tearing your gaze away from his dark eyes to the sink again, inhaling shakily so that you wouldn’t start to cry. 

“If people were just good at their fucking jobs, there’d be no pointless deaths,” you murmured bitterly. Your mother’s smile flashed before your eyes and you let go of the sink, turning around and leaning on it as Keith was. His arms were crossed and you saw him turn his face away from you, directing his gaze to the ceiling as you stared down at your feet.

“Where’s the winged one?” you asked tiredly, after Keith took on a lengthy silence. You hadn’t noticed in the operating room, too occupied with work, but the lanky guardian angel was nowhere to be seen. Even his cool presence was absent, leaving a bit of a void you’d never expected to experience. Keith let out a soft breath, his body feeling so unnaturally warm through your clothes, but not unbearable.

“Lance can’t materialize on Earth for that long. His soul belongs in Heaven, like humans belong on Earth. Angels really only ever watch from above. It’s rare for any of them to touch down on mortal planes, much less become visible to their wards. It takes a huge toll on them.”

You checked your watch, surprised to see the large numbers wink at you. Time didn’t mean much to you unless it was presented in the form of a deadline, and sunlight never shone inside the OR anyways. “It’s really late. I guess I let time get away from me.”

“You were in surgery for almost twelve hours. You’re not tired?”

You shrugged. He sounded mildly surprised, but your life had been this way ever since you’d dedicated yourself to your career. You were constantly passed around in a ménage à trois of sleeplessness and overachievement. It was just what you lived with. It was the only way to live if you were to save lives and do your fucking job; but apparently, you still weren’t good enough. Your fingers clenched your bloodstained scrubs yet again, the bruised face of the young female patient still scorched into your mind. Her name had been Dakota. Dakota was now sleeping in the morgue instead of at home with her parents.

“I was watching you the whole time.” 

Keith’s voice pulled you out of the dizzying downwards spiral and you re-opened your eyes, listening to his smooth tenor. Dakota’s toothless grin faded away.

“Death reapers spend most of their time between Earth and in the spirit world, guiding souls, so I’m able to materialize more easily than Lance can. The spirit world is just a parallel Earth, anyways. The two are bound much more closely. It’s not like Heaven, which is tethered far beyond mortals’ reach.”

“…did Dakota—that girl—did she have a good soul?” you asked quietly, the information about these whole other worlds going over your head. The scientist in you should’ve rejoiced. You were making breakthroughs in the true nature of the universe; and yet, all you could think about was how poor Dakota had thanked you so sweetly for being her doctor and working so hard for her. Your hands still felt the slick tissues of her tiny heart, the way they kept warm even after it had long stopped beating.

“Wasn’t my job,” Keith replied, succinctly. “One of my superiors came by to guide her. Shiro doesn’t want you to worry, but I think you will anyways. You seem the type.” He was studying your face, but you ignored his gaze, still staring down at your stiff hands. Dakota’s had been so small in comparison. Everything about her had been small, except for her giant, beaming grin.

“It was supposed to be a simple kidney transplant,” you whispered hoarsely. Normally, you would never have dreamt to share your insecurities with anybody. You had very few friends, most of whom you still considered competition, so you didn’t ever talk about any recorded deaths with them to uphold your image as the perfect model student. Something about Keith lowered your guard. Maybe it was the fact that he pretty much dealt with dead people for a living (if he was even considered ‘alive’), but your mouth moved without your brain’s volition, the hot tears in your eyes taking up most of your attention.

“It wasn’t even anything difficult. I’ve done hundreds of those before in labs. I’ve assisted in so many, too. Never had any complications. She was what, eight? And she just died... I did everything right, but she still died—”

“—like your mother. Isn’t that what you were thinking?”

Your head snapped up, the tears hitting the floor as you stared at his side profile. He scratched his head almost disinterestedly, and you felt your heart rate rise as fear pumped through your body.

“How did you know that?” you whispered, your voice trembling dangerously.

“Do you know why I’m here?” he asked, ignoring your question after a moment’s thought. You bit on your lip, but sensed that you wouldn’t be getting any answers your way, and complied reluctantly.

“You said that you want me to die, right?”

Keith scowled disapprovingly. “No. Lance is making a big deal out of it, but I’m going to tell you straight. You have a tarnished soul. It does not want to be on this Earth at this time in your body. Mortals are subject to the will of the soul, and there’s nothing we can do about it, either.”

“So how do I fix it? Dying? Doesn’t sound legit.” You were skeptical and sneered, shaking your head. Keith didn’t seem to be affected, continuing smoothly.

“What your soul needs is re-guidance to a different history. It needs to be reborn. Reincarnation appears to you as death, but in actuality, it’s just being born again into a different life. Souls and human minds have to be in harmony, or else you’ll end up with bad people that act like they don’t have souls at all.”

The warning in his tone was unmistakable. You thought about all those bad people on the news, in the books and in the pages of history, and wondered if they too had overstayed their soul’s welcome. Keith was very convincing in his flat, no-bullshit tone. You nearly nodded along, but you caught yourself with the memory of Lance’s sad smile.

“But Lance said I’d lose everything that makes me _me_. My past, my personality, my—well, everything. Being reborn… I’d have no more memories. It’d be a completely different life, even with this… soul thing. Is that right?”

“Well… yes.” Keith sighed again, finally turning his head to look at you. His violet blue eyes were endlessly deep, and you felt like he’d captivated you in a spell, locking you in a bubble of frozen time. Your fingers uncurled and the tears kept rolling down your cheeks, but you were silent as he spoke.

“Being reborn doesn’t mean rewinding time. It means restarting it. You get a new body. A new world to be around. You might be reborn thirty years from now, or sucked into a kid that took its first breath a second ago. You get that?”

“Yeah,” you muttered. It made sense, but you couldn’t help but feel like you should be resisting him; Lance’s genuine talks with you had cut you more deeply than you’d thought. You didn’t think you could leave behind your life and history. Though you didn’t have the love of many, you couldn’t just up and die on your few friends, leaving them behind forever. You knew first-hand what it felt like to wake up and never be able to see the smile of somebody again. Your mother, too—could you bear to forget about her for eternity?

“[Name].”

Keith regained your attention and you saw him lean closer to you, taking a step so that he stood square to your chest. His arms rested by his sides, thumbs tucked into his pockets, and he spoke very seriously. The overhead fluorescent lights gave his young face gaunt shadows, and you shivered.

“What Lance didn’t mention is the effects of the tarnishing soul onto others. Your soul needs energy. All do. A healthy one gets it from its host’s life force, being merged and all, but yours isn’t compatible with your body. It never was. It takes life from others. Steals energy from the weaker souls around you. It might fight stronger souls, but if their host is weak, their soul is weak… and it can easily become detached from its host. Souls can tarnish and fall into depravity, but becoming detached means that the host has died, or will be dead very soon. A mortal can’t live without a soul.”

“Wait…” 

Keith’s hinting tone was not missed and you couldn’t help but clamp your hands over your mouth in horror. The taste of rust burnt in the back of your throat as you began to shake your head, silently pleading for him to stop. Disregarding you, Keith let out a small breath.

“There was nothing you could have done for them both,” he replied stately, understanding that you had figured it out. Despite the emotionless tone, he looked sad, his eyes sorrowful as they looked down on you.

“ _I_ killed them?!” you gasped, feeling as if your lungs had ceased to work. You backed away from Keith until you hit a wall, sharp pain radiating from your back. You ignored it, unable to think of anything but your mother’s dead face, Dakota’s dead face—

“I’m sorry, [Name].”

“No. No, no!” You began to laugh, hysterically so, covering your eyes as your shoulders shook. “No, they died because of incompatible organs a-and agglutination. Their bodies failed. Not because some fucking soul thing inside of me is eating theirs; not because of some stupid shit like that. It’s because of their cells a-and _real_ shit. It can’t be my fault—”

“It isn’t your fault,” Keith insisted, interrupting you. You felt him walk towards you, but refused to look, afraid of what you’d see on his face. Keith’s hand landed lightly on your shoulder. “It’s not your fault, but I have to be very honest with you. This will keep happening to people around you. Your soul is one of the strongest I’ve seen, but that means it puts a lot of others at risk. With your profession, in a hospital surrounded by sickly people—”

“I am a _doctor_!” you shrilled. “Medicine saves lives! Chemicals and drugs and shit! A damn soul is not going to suddenly stop penicillin from working! Something like that… it’s not just—!”

Despite your screaming outburst, Keith was calm, the other hand forced down on your other shoulder to lean you back against the wall. He grounded you as your words became incomprehensible, tears blurring everything away, from your sight to your mind. Had they really all died because of you, or whatever your soul had done? Had you accidentally stolen the lives of other people that you’d merely walked past? Keith said that it wasn’t your fault, but surely, that had to be murder.

Twenty years ago, your mother died from a faulty kidney transplant. The failure had been caused by a cancer in the first place—it was unpreventable due to her genetics, you knew—but doctors claimed that she was on the road to recovery. Everybody was getting ready to have a congratulatory party. It lined up with your birthday, and festivity was through the roof. Your mother never failed to smile in that hospital bed, and always reassured you that she’d bake your favourite cake for your birthday. Mommy’d be out of the hospital to play dollhouse and dress-up with you again before you knew it.

She died the day before your birthday.

You had vowed then that you would become the world’s greatest surgeon; nobody would die because of mistakes. God forbid they be yours. Idiocy and human error was not going to end any innocent lives on your watch. You had promised yourself that you’d do everything in your power to save lives. You had promised yourself to sacrifice everything for perfection. People still died, as was the nature of things, but that wasn’t _your_ fault. Medicine was too far behind, or the patient had been too late in administrating care. All you had to do was get better. 

Had you been wrong all along?

“Lance is sentimental, but he’s right in doing his job. Angels fight to keep souls with their mortals for as long as possible. But I am telling you now, not as a reaper, but as a friend—when a tarnished soul falls into depravity, you will never be the same. You will never be able to do good. Everything changes. Time will tell when yours does. After a soul goes into depravity… if _yours_ does… I won’t be able to help you. And I want to.”

Your head bowed forwards, your hair grazing his chest. Keith didn’t move to hug you, nor did you want him to. His grip on your shoulders was enough to steady you. You focused on steadying your breathing instead. Strength had always been one of your fortitudes, and a decision like this would require a lot of that. 

“Keith.” You cleared your throat, lifting your head. “Hey, I’m uh, asking you to do me a solid here. No takebacks or anything.” Despite the light-hearted tone you tried to embody to fight off your real emotions, your voice shook, and tears still welled in your eyes. He looked surprised to see you calm all of the sudden, his fingers twitching on your shoulders as you reached up and grasped his forearm. Your grip tightened around his warm skin as you smiled wearily. 

“Please kill me.”

**Author's Note:**

> Elsewhere: https://goo.gl/Us2wAV


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